Whether Biden or Trump wins the coming election, the logic of a trade deal will be another Brexit blow, argues Chris Grey
The growing possibility of Donald Trump losing November’s US Presidential Election is alarming Brexiters, concerned about what negotiating a US-UK trade deal with an administration led by Joe Biden will mean.
Such a deal has long been held up as a key prize for Brexit Britain, though its economic benefit is estimated to be about 0.1-0.3% GDP growth over 15 years so its value is primarily symbolic. It would be far outweighed by the reduction to trade with the EU under any form that Brexit eventually takes.
The symbolism is partly to do with the idea of sovereignty – that this would be an emblem of an ‘independent’ trade policy – and partly because the EU doesn’t have a Free Trade Agreement with the US, so it would show the EU up as lumbering and ineffective. It also harks back to the bitter resentment felt by ‘Leave’ campaigners about then President Barack Obama’s intervention in the 2016 EU Referendum, when he warned that Britain would be “at the back of a queue” for a US trade deal.
Some have pondered that a Biden presidency would enable a UK-US trade deal through the back door. The reasoning is that he might well revert to the Obama policy of joining what is now the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) – a policy abandoned by Trump. This is also now a possibility for the UK. Thus, if both joined, the UK and the US would have a new trading agreement without having had to do a bilateral deal.
However, by the same token, this would have far less of the symbolic glitter of a bespoke agreement with the US. For committed Brexiters, a deal with Trump’s America remains the most attractive option – and a Biden presidency a worrying prospect.
Brexiters Naïve About Trump
Brexiters have always been unrealistic about what Trump would do for them. Periodic announcements since his election that Britain was now ‘first in line’ for a deal came more from his own obsessive need to repudiate anything and everything that Obama had said and done, rather than any principled commitment to the Brexit cause.
In reality, the Trump administration has blown hot and cold about the priority afforded to such a deal, with the President failing to meet his commitment at the 2017 G20 summit to deliver it “very, very quickly” and, following the 2019 G7 meeting, to do so by July 2020.
This is not a surprise. Trump’s entire presidency has shown his capriciousness and inconsistency. The idea that his chumminess with Nigel Farage and links with other key Brexiters would yield tangible outcomes was highly naive. The constant churn within his own administration shows his personal attachments are fragile and ephemeral.
The nature of what the US will seek is relatively independent of who the President happens to be.
But there is more at stake than personalities.
Trump has a consistent political ideology to put ‘America First’ and be protectionist about trade. So, even if his personality was different, the possibility that he would give the UK a ‘good’ or even a quick deal out of sentiment has always been naïve. In fact, the combination of that ideology, the keenness of Brexit Britain to do a deal for symbolic reasons, and the relative economic strengths of the two countries means that any deal done would almost certainly be more advantageous to the US than the UK.
In any case, presidents don’t themselves negotiate trade deals – although they can frame and facilitate them politically – and don’t have a free hand in agreeing them. It has long been made clear by Speaker Nancy Pelosi that Congress would not allow Trump to make a deal with the UK which in any way undermined Northern Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement (GFA).
A Biden Presidency Would Make the Same Demands
Brexiters expected far too much of Trump but they and others misconstrue what would change under a Biden administration.
Clearly there would be differences. He is pro-EU, unlike Trump. He is known to regard Brexit as a mistake both in itself and as being damaging to US interests. And his strong personal and political connections with Ireland mean that he is unlikely to do anything to damage the Good Friday Agreement.
But none of these things precludes a UK-US trade deal. Rather, a Biden administration would be seeking similar things from a deal to Trump, using a similarly tough and experienced negotiating team, and preying on the same UK vulnerability caused by its political desire for a deal.
We know, in outline, what these things are. They include, in particular, enhanced access to UK agricultural, pharmaceutical and healthcare markets. At stake here is not so much tariffs as reducing regulatory – or non-tariff – barriers. Allowing ‘chlorinated chicken’ has become the widely referenced example, but that is really code for far more extensive regulatory changes that would be sought over food, environmental safety and other standards.